Bankakerfi evrusvæðis á hálum ís

Credit Writedowns 30. apríl 2009

Hypo Real Estate: defusing the German financial time bomb

The first bank nationalization in German history is about to take place. At issue is Hypo Real Estate (HRE), a troubled Munich-based company that lends to commercial property developers and to build offices, hotels, roads, airports, you name it . . . .

. . . Here’s my understanding of the matter. Bayerische Vereinsbank and Bayerische Hypothekenbank both ran into trouble due to ‘Verspekulierungen (bad speculation)’ in the period immediately after German re-unification. Vereinsbank and Hypobank were front and center in the speculative property bubble that developed in the former East Germany after the Wall fell. This was one reason my consulting firm was working at Vereinsbank . . .

The most shocking news from last week’s excellent Global Financial Stability Report from the International Monetary Fund was not the headline estimate of total bad assets. That number stands at $4,100bn (£2,800bn, €3,000bn) and will almost certainly be revised upwards. Much more shocking was that the lion’s share of these assets belong to European, not North American, banks. Of the total $4,100bn, the global banking system accounts for $2,800bn. Of that, a little over half – $1,426bn – is sitting in European banks, while US banks account for only $1,050bn.

Even worse, European banks have written down much less than American ones. According to Reuters, the US and European banking and insurance sector has so far written down $740bn. More than 70 per cent of the write-downs come from the US. The eurozone’s share has been an appalling 14 per cent.

German banks loaded with 816 billion in toxic paper

On Friday, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) leaked a bombshell - a confidential report by Bafin, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, found that German banks were sitting on over 800 billion euros in toxic assets. Just three months ago, the reports coming out suggested the problem was only half as large, 400 billion euros.

This new account has been all over the news in Germany because Germans are becoming quite frightened about the health of their banking system and are angry because the German economy was largely absent from the bubbles of the past decade. Germans are beginning to ask quite openly why banks like Commerzbank and the state-owned land banks as well as institutions like Hypo Real Estate are being rescued with taxpayer money. This is a debate now ongoing in a number of countries, the U.S., the U.K. and Ireland most prominent among them. In an election year in Germany, this issue is sure to have an impact